Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

"A Cloth of Honor" by Okon Akpan Abuje

View a shrine cloth (12 ft. high, 5 ft. wide) featuring an applique panel depicting the deceased, his wife, and his daughter.

February 6, 1991 – May 5, 1991

African Art Museum

A Caravan of Crafts from the Sahel

View and purchase Tuareg jewelry, handwoven textiles, Botswana baskets, wooden sculpture, and Boklafani print ties.

November 15, 1980 – January 31, 1981

African Art Museum

A Concrete Vision: Oshogbo Art in the 1960s

View works by 11 Nigerian artists of the Oshogbo Movement, center of a major artistic renaissance.

January 23, 2000 – October 22, 2000

African Art Museum

A Human Ideal in African Art/Bamana Figurative Sculpture

View 45 sculptures in an exhibition that explores and illustrates the traditional use of the human image in the art of the Mali's Bamana people.

April 30, 1986 – June 15, 1986

African Art Museum

A King and His Cloth: Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I

See an exhibition featuring the 7x10' "adinkra" cloth owned by Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, king of Asante in Ghana from 1888 to 1896.

January 29, 1997 – March 23, 1997

African Art Museum

A Personal Journey: Central African Art from the Collection of Lawrence Gussman

View an exhibition from the Lawrence Gussman collection including 75 objects representing 30 African cultures.

June 9, 2002 – October 6, 2002

African Art Museum

A Spiral of History: A Carved Tusk from the Loango Coast, Congo

View a 19th-century carved ivory tusk dthat depicts historical, ceremonial, anecdotal, and daily events, spiraling from the base to the tip.

February 1, 1998 – April 26, 1998

African Art Museum

Adire Cloth from Nigeria

See examples of the indigo-dyed and patterned textiles produced by the skilled dyers among the Yoruba women of Nigeria.

April 23, 1984 – July 5, 1984

African Art Museum

Adire: Resist-Dyed Cloths of the Yoruba

See an exhibition featuring adire (indigo resist-dyed) cloths produced by Yoruba women artists of southwestern Nigeria.

April 16, 1997 – August 17, 1997

African Art Museum

Africa Illustrated: Fantasy and Reality Before 1900

See early history, ethnology, and travel books on Africa containing illustrations that reflected and shaped European perceptions of the continent between the 17th and 19th centuries.

June 5, 1991 – November 10, 1991

African Art Museum

Africa ReViewed: The Photographic Legacy of Eliot Elisofon

Be transported to mid-20th-century Africa through Eliot Elisofon's photographs, collected objects, films, and journals.

November 21, 2013 – December 14, 2014

African Art Museum

Africa Rifting: Lines of Fire, Namibia/Brazil

Watch a video that uses coastal landscapes of southern Africa and Brazil to explore the concepts of rift, synchronicity, and transcendence, concepts that the artist infuses with deep spiritual meaning.

June 14, 2006 – October 31, 2008

African Art Museum

African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection

This exhibition features 100 objects by 28 contemporary African artists representing 15 African countries from the Contemporary African Art Collection of Swiss entrepreneur and photographer Jean Pigozzi.

November 16, 2005 – February 26, 2006

African Art Museum

African Art in Color

See 67 objects that explore polychromy in traditional African art.

May 18, 1983 – October 16, 1983

African Art Museum

African Art in the Cycle of Life

See approximately 90 objects in this major international loan exhibition from public and private collections in Europe, the U.S., and Africa that demonstrate that art in Africa intersects most aspects of the life cycle with remarkable consistency.

September 28, 1987 – March 20, 1988

African Art Museum

African Cosmos: Stellar Arts

See some 90 African art objects that were inspired by astronomical observations and phenomena, including rainbows and eclipses.

June 20, 2012 – December 9, 2012

African Art Museum

African Emblems of Status

This exhibition of 205 objects presents the variety of forms, materials and kinds of art objects created to identify, honor, and celebrate individuals of status and achievement.

October 27, 1982 – April 3, 1983

African Art Museum

African Forms in the Furniture of Pierre Legrain

See an exhibition that explores the influence African chairs and stools had on the work of French artist Pierre Legrain (1889-1929), who is credited as one of the founders of the Art Deco style.

August 16, 1998 – November 29, 1998

African Art Museum

African Gold from the Glassell Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

See approximately 135 works of art that represent the rich diversity of Akan gold work and royal regalia from Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire in West Africa.

May 26, 2006 – November 26, 2006

African Art Museum

African Influences in Modern Art

See an exhibition illustrating the similarities in form and artistic concept between traditional African sculpture and works of modern Western art.

January 1, 1980 – July 31, 1980

African Art Museum

African Islam

See more than 100 works of art that explore the interaction of Islam and traditional African life.

November 30, 1983 – April 22, 1984

African Art Museum

African Mankala

See 27 sculptured gameboards and 11 related objects that depict the vital visual forms of Africa's popular game, mankala.

June 20, 1984 – October 7, 1984

African Art Museum

African Masterpieces from the Musee de L'Homme

View 100 world-renowned works of art from West and Central Africa, most of which have never been on display outside of France.

April 8, 1985 – June 9, 1985

African Art Museum

African Mosaic: 50th Anniversary Room

Originally housed in a Capitol Hill town house once owned by Frederick Douglass, the museum became part of the Smithsonian Institution in 1979 by an act of Congress and was renamed the National Museum of African Art.

July 16, 2014 – Indefinitely

African Art Museum

African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection

This exhibition showcases museum purchases and gifts and provides a glimpse into the collecting opportunities and decisions that exist for art museums.

November 19, 2010 – Closed

African Art Museum